Words By Whittall

  Darcy had never believed in love at first sight until that day in the bank when it hit like a freight train to the chest. The blond guy, two ahead of her in line, turned to look at the fly-speckled clock and: kaboom caboose! She was knocked off the tracks. She knew she was deeply in love with this man. She knew they were meant to be together forever, and even though she was starting university in September she knew their relationship was strong enough to withstand any distance. She also knew he’d think she was nuts if she ran up to him in the bank and declared any of this, so she waited, watched, and listened. Try as she might, she didn’t hear the teller refer to him by name, couldn’t see his signature or recognize his pay stub, and couldn’t determine how much money he withdrew. Instead, she watched silently as he sauntered past her, out the door and made a left onto Lynx Avenue. That’s ok, Darcy thought. Banff is a small town and I’m here all summer. I’m sure to run into him...

  Thickly painted robin's egg blue cupboards framed the window looking down to the river, a trivial and unimportant view as any farmer's wife preferred to see what was happening at the barn.  And so it was, that the focal point of my grandmother's kitchen was not the window, the cupboards, nor the behemoth, blackened wood burning stove which produced warmth, wonderful scents and greasy gray streaks of soot on the canary yellow walls. No, the focal point of my grandmother's bright kitchen was the overstuffed, threadbare chair wedged in the corner beside that stove, for it was here she let my brother and me comb her hair, told us stories, and, upon begging, taught us bad words in Pennsylvania Dutch: dommy and dumkoff. I’d been hoping for damn or darn, maybe even shit, but none were in this sweet woman’s lexicon in any language.  She inherited the kitchen when she married into the family in 1931. The colours were well established long before then, before I, or my father...